♪ host: it is saturday, january 17, 2026. a bipartisan group of lawmakers is in denmark today attempting to calm rising tensions between the u.s. and its ally over president trump's interest in american control of greenland. in the u.s., multiple sources are reporting the department of justice is investigating the governor of minnesota and mayor of minneapolis as the ongoing

ice enforcement in the state continues despond spawn backlash from some residents. those are two of the stories we are following this morning, but we want to start with your top news story of the week. our phone line for democrats is (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. for independents, (202) 748-8002. if you would like to text us, the number is (202) 748-8003. on wednesday, minnesota democratic governor tim walz was actually condemning ice actions in his estate and encouraged residents to protest peacefully. though cbs news reported that the doj is investigating governor tim walz and minneapolis mayor jacob frey over those alleged -- an alleged conspiracy to impede immigration agents. the justice department is

investigating minnesota officials including governor tim walz and minneapolis mayor jacob frey over an alleged conspiracy to impede federal immigration agents, an extraordinary escalation in the trump administration's clash with the democratic leaders there. sources with the matter told cbs news. one of the sources, a u.s. official, said the investigation stems from statements that tim walz and jacob frey made about the thousands of immigration and customs enforcement officers and border patrol agent's deployed to the minneapolis region in recent weeks. subpoenas are likely to be issued in the probe, sources familiar with the matter told cbs news. a justice department spokesman declined to comment. the minnesota -- minneapolis mayor, this is an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and residents against the chaos and danger this administration has brought to our streets, jacob frey said in a statement to cbs news.

i will not be intimidated. my focus will remain on keeping our city safe. governor walz said two days ago it was elissa slotkin, jerome powell, mark kelly. weaponizing the justice department and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactics. the only person not being investigated for the shooting of renee good is the federal agent who shot her. tim walz spoke to the public and condemned those i's actions in his estate and urged residents to protest peacefully. [video clip] gov. walz: i know it is scary and absurd we have to defend humanity while caring for our family and doing for our jobs. let me say to donald trump and kristi noem, and this occupation. you've done enough. let me say four critical thanks to the people of minnesota as you watch the news and look out for your neighbors.

first, donald trump once this chaos. he wants confusion. yes, he wants more violence on our streets. we cannot give him what he wants. we cannot. we must protest loudly, urgently, but also peacefully. as hard as we will fight in the courts and ballot box, we cannot and will not let violence prevail. you are angry. i am angry. angry is not a strong enough word. but we must remain peaceful. second, you are not powerless. you are not helpless. and you are certainly not alone. all across minnesota people are learning about opportunities not just to resist but to help people who are in danger. thousands upon thousands of our fellow minnesotans are going to be relying on mutual aid in the days and weeks to come and need our support. tonight, i want to share another way you can help. witness. help us establish a record of

exactly what is happening in our communities. you have an absolute right to peacefully film ice agents as they conduct these activities. carry your phone with you at all times. if you see these ice agents in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record. help us create a database of the atrocities against minnesotans. not just to establish a record for posterity, but the bank evidence for future prosecution. the third thing i want to say is we won't have to live like this forever. accountability is coming. at the voting booth and in court. we will reclaim our communities from donald trump. we will reestablish a sense of safety for our neighbors. and we will bring an end to this moment of chaos, confusion, and trauma. we will find a way to move forward, and we will do it together. host: earlier, the trump administration floated the idea of invoking the insurrection act in response to the ongoing

response to the ice rates in minnesota. reporting and fox news that trump said there is no need to invoke the insurrection act right now amid that anti-ice unrest in minnesota. them saying there isn't a reason to invoke the insurrection act as agitators clashed with authorities carrying out enforcement operations in minneapolis. trump was departing the white house when he was asked about the 18 oh seven law, which she threatened to invoke earlier this week. "i believe it was bush, the elder bush, he used it, i think, 28 times." "i don't think there's any reason to use it right now, but if i needed it, i'd use it, is very powerful pier, it allows the president to deploy the military to suppress rebellions and enforce federal laws. it would grant trump the authority to federalize the national guard and deploy active

duty forces to restore order. it would temporarily override the act which normally restricts the use of military for domestic law enforcement. kristi noem was responding to reported questions about the ice operations in minnesota and our conversations with president trump about potentially invoking the insurrection act there. >> do have plans to pull out of minnesota? how would you describe what you are seeing on the ground? would you describe it as an insurrection? sec. noem: i describe it as violent. i discussed with the president this morning several things that we are dealing with under the department, different operations. we did discuss the insurrection act. he certainly has the constitutional authority to institute that. my hope is this leadership team in minnesota will start to work with us to get criminals off the streets. remember, we are there in surged

operations because of the largest fraud scheme in american history. we have people stealing from taxpayers, stealing funds from the most vulnerable people, people who needed mental health services, developmental services, autism, day care. instead people came in, much from the somalian community, and stole dollars from the people who needed it and put it in their own pockets and enriched themselves, right under governor walz's nose. we believe he didn't just know about it, he may be complicit as well. host: we are looking for your top news story of the week. we are starting with ted. caller: thank you for taking my call. it is no doubt that ice is out of control in minneapolis and other states in the nation. and also, we have to switch gears. it has been announced on the internet right now that donald trump has been served with

article 25, impeachment, article 4 of amendment 25, and it is being reported now that donald trump is locked up in his residence. host: where are you saying that, ted? i haven't seen anything about the president being served with articles of impeachment in this administration. joy in philadelphia, pennsylvania on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: hello? host: good morning. what is your top news story of the week? caller: the fact that donald trump claims that he is concerned about the fraud in minneapolis. i am concerned about him taking all of the oil tankers and having a secret bank account in qatar. remember, qatar is the one that gave him the airplane. my top news story is that he is robbing the citizens here blind.

and i would like you to look that up to see if that is a true story. thank you. host: one story that i do have on hand is the united states has officially started selling venezuelan oil. here is reporting and cnn showing that the united states has completed its first sale of venezuelan oil valued at $500 million according to an administration official. additional sales are coming in the coming days and weeks, the official added. in the days since the united states attacked venezuela and captured its president nicolas maduro earlier this month, president donald trump has made it clear that he plans to tap into the country's oil reserves. let's go to paul in idaho on the line for republicans. good, paul. caller: good morning. we are getting so close to martin luther king's birthday that i am kind of getting

excited about that. he was such a prolific, spiritual being, as far as his writing is concerned. and he was articulate. and he, just -- i learned a lot from him, you know? i was eight years old when he was assassinated and it still means a lot to me. yeah, i think we will see what happens today at the minneapolis -- the news conference they had on cbs about the five different law enforcement people that were going to get together and, i guess, back up the ice if it was necessary. i would like to see that if that were to happen. that way something would not be done and they wouldn't be at a peaceful protest i'm pretty skeptical.

i feel as though these people they bought off to be able to do whatever they want, running around town, and it has cost two people gunshots. one person is deceased and the other person got shot in the leg. i don't see it having to get to that point, but i really hope it doesn't. host: joy was referencing some of the oil sales money from the oil in venezuela being held in accounts in qatar. here is some reporting showing in their reporting revenue from the oil sales is being held in bank accounts controlled by the u.s. government, as indicated in friday's order, according to an administration official. the main account, according to a second senior administration official, is located in qatar. the second official described qatar as a neutral location where money can flow freely with u.s. approval and

without risk of seizure. president trump noted some money would be in u.s. treasury accounts. president trump brokered a historic energy deals with venezuela following the arrest of narco terrorist nicolas maduro that will benefit the american and venezuelan people. taylor rogers told semafor in a statement. your top news story of the week, mark in tulsa, oklahoma on the line for independents. caller: hey, kimberly. how are you doing? it's good to be back on the air again with the american people. i want to tell eight news story, it's new, that's what we call it news, is not the same old drama. the power and the purse controls everything in our government. the money controls everything. these politicians in washington, d.c. are bought off.

they are playing theatrics. mr. walz is playing theatrics, mr. trump is playing theatrics. this is like wwe watching hulk hogan and macho man right now. it's so fake. the problem is, we buy into the theatrics. the people in minnesota to me, i don't see people in minnesota at the doorstep of the mayor. he is theatrical is aware, but they aren't on his doorsteps knocking down his door saying be quiet and let the ice agents go. it seems to me the majority of the minnesotans are like, get out of our city. it would be a more theatrical game for the rich people that control this game like squid game, you guys need to go to a republican city, and i am an independent, but go to a republican city. you guys act like these

republican people hate immigrants. i don't think republicans hate immigrants. i don't think they do. but you guys try to persuade them to. so, go to someplace in texas and go to a city like dallas and start doing your shenanigans there and see how it works out for you. because at the end of the day, kimberly and the american people, this is a game. we are watching a wrestling match right now, controlled by the others. it is prescribed, pre-done, let's get over it, leave the minnesotans alone. they clearly don't want ice. we have sovereignty in this country, do we not? sovereignty. we talk about states, state sovereignty. they get to make their own decisions on abortion. half of americans think abortion is murder and half think that it should be the right of the mom. you know, let the states decide.

if they want ice in their community, then the leadership, the elected leadership can say, bring it on. then we will start seeing the leaders, the local leaders adhering to the people. host: market, the administration has pushed back against what have been called sanctuary cities. some of these cities have made particular policies that were protective of immigrants. the trump administration, and many others, have said that's problematic. i know you're talking about state-level controlling decisions on this, but what do you think of the concept of the sanctuary cities? caller: my concept is -- dallas, texas. that is where my mom was born, in dallas, texas. believe me, there are tens of thousands of so-called illegal immigrants in dallas, texas. to me, people are power.

i love people. i don't have a problem with any of it. if they are doing hard crime and stuff, get them off the streets if they are killing people and raping young people, or whatever the case may be. i don't think people have an issue with that, but they are doing more than that. this is overflowing into a game of theatrics. so, go to dallas, texas, or a republican big city with a republican head and start doing your ice agents in there and we will see if the people sit back and watch it happen. and just extradite all the illegals from the big city. host: i think we've got your idea, mark. good morning, stan. caller: good morning. my main issue, remember, the gun culture in alabama. i grew up hunting and fishing.

in minnesota when they shot that woman in the head, that wasn't nothing but a killing. ice is going around in this country killing people. a bunch of mask people looking like the lone ranger running around in this country. host: vincent is in tulsa, oklahoma on the line for republicans. good morning, vincent. caller: in 12th grade at edison high school i took a history class. absolute power corrupts absolutely. trump is corrupt, it's going to his head. something else, why are there so many games on martin luther king day, professional football? host: all right. creation in pennsylvania on the line for independents. good morning, creation. what is your top news story of

the week? caller: good morning. i would like to say this. i'm asking a question. ok, why are immigrants -- the united states of america? they -- are over here. when you have every culture, everything in one, why are they going back overseas? they should be tried over here if they are legal, why are they sending them overseas? i would like to say that, i listened to your story about the oil. that they have started selling the oil for usa in venezuela, but if you have heard the news yesterday, they are no longer allowed to have government over there. did they make this decision before or after -- of the

government in venezuela? they are not over there and maybe the entire overseas. host: harold in east alton, illinois on the line for democrats. good morning, harold. caller: i would like to tell you something different. instead of complaining i would like to give simple solutions to complex problems we are having. i think with ice, instead of deploying them on these different immigrants, why don't we deploy them on the people that hire them? if they don't have jobs they won't stay here? deploy them on people that rented them a home? if they don't have no place to live and they don't have no place to work they will not stay here. they will deport on their own. as far as our government is concerned, we need to get all the money out of the government. we need to have the elections funded by the government. i'm not talking about two or three year long elections. may be six months at the most.

each candidate gets so much air each candidate gets so much money for whatever, however they want to use it, and it is all a level playing field. instead of getting all of these millionaires to go work for $175,000, maybe we can get a guy who only makes $80,000. offer him a job for 170 $5,000, and he will show up every day and do his job to the best of his ability. as far as any of the trump minions out there who are listening, if trump is loosening himself, because he has c-span 1 , he has the upgrade, i think he ought to invite putin and netanyahu to mar-a-lago, put out the red carpet, and as soon as they get there, abductor them and send them to the hague for their war crimes and he can get the nobel peace prize by solving two wars at one time.

thank you. host: surely in missouri city, texas on the line for republicans. good morning, shirley. what is your top news story? caller: my top news story is, first of all, i think that -- she is corrupt mayor, he is corrupt also, they are trying to push up all of this business on ice and tried to keep it in the news so that it keeps the monkey off his back as far as the corruption goes, because now the corruption has moved all the way, they say, to ohio. it's all ready to over -- is it $60 million or $16 billion -- $16 million or $16 billion?

for all of the day cares and all of the transportation companies that they were supposedly picking these kids up at, and all of that is tied up in everything. and they probably got 12 -- sorry, 12 companies that aren't really set up. they are set up but they don't use them. they bill each company for a service that wasn't provided. then they also found out that over 12 million dollars has been sent over to somalia somewhere. host: there is definitely an ongoing investigation into fraud in minnesota over the day care centers and some food assistance programs. i'm not finding the exact numbers you were using but the investigation is ongoing. anthony in south river, new jersey on the line for

independents. caller: top of the morning, thank you for coming in. i am with shirley. you can't find the numbers. the reason is the legacy media is very biased and they won't give you the numbers. this is my suggestion to everybody. i want you to go on youtube. put into youtube, in the search -- host: it actually took me a minute. a story on cbs news, as national attention focuses on the growing fraud scandal in minnesota, which federal prosecutors estimate cooktop $9 billion, this is when the state's democratic governor tim walz announced he was dropping his reelection campaign. the investigation is ongoing, but that is where some of the numbers are coming from, an estimate of over $9 billion in fraud, which minnesota's government has been disputing

those tallies. but this is being reported in the mainstream media. go ahead, anthony. caller: kimberly, i love you and appreciate you and appreciate what you just did, because c-span, washington journal is one of the few things out there that we still have left, even though there is some bias, but i like when you go and you get the information. i will tell the audience to do this, because cbs and all of the legacy are still biased. they are looking for information and they won't say anything. when governor walz says that nick shirley is the guy who has exposed all this stuff, he basically took a go pro camera and went to all these places and found out they are not daycare centers, they are bodegas and just addresses with nothing going on there. what i suggest to the audience, just like you did, and i appreciate that, but you have to empower your selves as americans

and get the facts. if you go to youtube and you search for nick shirley, you will get two videos. yes, they are about 40 and 50 minutes each. you will see he goes to all of these places. and you will see how corrupt and how there is no oversight on these programs, you know. there are five different programs, day cares, adult day cares, transportation. as an example, the transportation places, he will go to these places and they won't have any vehicles, they won't have parking, they won't have a sign saying they have a business. they are wire transfer places. they get all of this money and there is no oversight. they will point out, per the minnesota government website, there is a guy dave who got all of the stuff who gave it to nick shirley, that there is -- they

are saying they are giving out millions of dollars, but if you want to say i have a transportation company because i want to transportate elderly people to the grocery store, we should have that, that is what our country needs, but there is no oversight. if i, anthony, say that i have a transportation company with six vehicles, the website will ask, how many trips? 10 trips yesterday. host: anthony, i think that we have your idea. in response to some components of the nick shirley video that anthony was talking about, investigators, i am reading from reporting in see, investigators with the minnesota department of chilled, -- youth, children, and families, conducted on-site compliance checks and children were present at all the sites except for one

that was not yet open for families the day the inspectors arrived. investigators gathered evidence and initiated for the review according to the release. the department has ongoing investigations into four of the centers mentioned in the video. in total across the state the department has 50 five open investigations involving providers receiving ccap funding. as anthony was putting out, -- pointing out, that investigation is ongoing. larry on the line for democrats. caller: yeah, it appears canada, the prime minister of canada, has called donald trump's bluff on his tariffs, and now he is dealing directly with china on items that america needs, such as aluminum and fertilizer for our farmers, stuff like that we need it instead of china. host: larry, can i pause you to

make sure folks are familiar with the story you are talking about? i will give a recap and let you finish your point. in politico, carney has opened china to chinese ev's and china has cut canola oil tariffs. xi jinping and mark carney mark a new strategic partnership. this is a story from yesterday. prime minister mark carney's opening the door to imports from electric vehicles from china with expectations olive bra -- caller: this is not just china, it will bring european nations starting to counteract his

tariffs also. i don't believe the art of the deal, i don't believe this is a good art of the deal, and that is all i have to say. thank you. host: richard and hacienda heights, california on the line for republicans, good morning, richard. caller: good morning, it's very early here. obviously, the topic of the week is still the immigration enforcement, ice, kristi noem, and jonathan ross. they should both be dealt with. i think the president is so stubborn he doesn't get it. they were making so much progress with the immigration issue in this country, and now they bring these masked guys out to agitate people. the whole country's up in arms over it. it really surprises me that trump could be so stubborn as to not realize that all the progress he has made with immigration is being thrown out the door. i see it out here in l.a.

people are getting really upset about it. it surprises me that the president would be so foolish as to bring masked armies onto the streets where they are not wanted just to agitate, it looks like to me. host: can i read polling about this exact topic and then get your response? this is polling from ugov. the majority of americans view ice unfavorably and support major changes to the agency. yougov polling found the majority of americans disapproved of ice and were concerned about the treatment of citizens and immigrants. new polling shows the majority of americans say that ross's shooting of good was not justified and should lead to criminal charges. americans view ice less favorably than several other

federal agencies. nearly half of americans say that ice should be eliminated entirely. a significant increase from past pulling. majorities of americans support major changes that would place new restrictions on ice. if you break that down by parties, in terms of whether or not ice sometimes uses unnecessary force, things like that, it breaks it down by party. democrats are obviously way more likely to say ice is using too much force in general. in terms of you and ice unfavorably, 40% of americans view ice somewhat or very favorably. 52% view ice somewhat or very unfavorably. it is highly polarized by party with obviously more democrats viewing it unfavorably compared to republicans. what are your thoughts on that

data, richard? caller: i don't know anybody, regardless of party affiliation that could have seen the video of that woman being shot in the face and think that that is a good thing. this guy should be in jail or at least charges should be put on him. kristi noem lies like crazy right after it, an hour or two later. everyone is stunned by it. i don't know who could possibly see that. host: according to the p olling, 63% of republicans say the ice agent shouldn't face charges for shooting the woman in minneapolis. 53% of overall american say that he should. only 14% of republicans, according to this poll, so he should face criminal charges. what you think is going on? caller: i think people have had so many problems with illegal

immigration they will do anything they can possibly do to change it and get the people deported or self deported, so they will say anything. i don't know anyone who saw that video, and i've talked to a lot of people of all color, and i have not met one person who didn't think that was an unjustified -- completely. three rounds in quick succession like that? that was an assassination of that lady. it was bad. host: well, some more of that yougov polling about if that forced by the ice agent was justified or unjustified. 28% of americans in general say that the use of force was justified in the shooting. 53% say it wasn't justified.

big disparities by party. 88% of democrats to say that that was not justified. 15% of republicans say that it wasn't justified compared to 61% of republicans saying that the shooting was justified. greg in texas on the line for independents. caller: good morning. hey, kimberly. i have my comments if you could give me some time. thank you, jasmine crockett. you made me want to vote again because they done took over the voting thing and all this, jasmine crockett, everything that you say come out your mouth is true. i will vote for you as an independent. i'm one vote casting a vote for you, i'm not voting for anybody else because the rest of the people just follow along. when it come down to all of the what ice is doing, this ain't nothing new because we went through this all our life. cap like have been -- black people have been complaining how they have been treated by the police.

this ain't nothing new. again, i want to say, kimberly, these people called in on these shows and they want to suggest the opposite, like on cnn with abby philip. all of the republicans, they are making the show morning so people get tired of hearing the same lies out of their mouth. they are going to admit to whatever is going on in this country. we were raised to believe in the american way, the way they raised us to do with the right way, these people ain't ever going to admit what is going on in this country is wrong, kimberly. kimberly, let me let you know, let me tell you something, the way that this country is being ran right now, this is what black folk have been dealing with for years with the checking your id. we get stopped every day checking your id wanting to do inventory on us. they not messing with us, but let me tell you about this job situation. bear with me, kimberly. the job situation coming up as a

kid, the first thing they did, they hired, they have the white guys controlling the companies, construction companies, all of that, they was happy. they ruined the company -- host: i want to follow up with something you started with, the texas senate race. here is reporting in politico. talarico leads crockett in the texas senate primary according to a new poll. an emerson college poll finds representative james talarico with a nine point lead in the democratic primary and senator john cornyn it neck and neck with attorney general ken paxton on the gop side. james talarico has leapt ahead in the texas senate democratic primary with a nine point lead over representative jasmine crockett according to new polling from emerson college released thursday. the data shows talarico from austin leading the dallas congress member by 47% to 38% ahead of their march 3 primary. when jasmine crockett jumped into the race, or national

prominence and a fundraising strength had some expecting her to take the lead in the primary, but talarico poured money into his campaign and built a large online following. let's go to kathy in hanover, massachusetts on the line for democrats for your top news story of the week. caller: good morning, happy saturday. i would like to talk about the support of ice individuals wearing masks and the justification of it. i would like to bring awareness to a judge who has had her son killed when someone delivered pizza intentionally to her house. they will go to people's places of work. this is the other justification. they need to wear it at work because people come to them at work. no, the people who are going after people they don't like are going to their homes. now you have pizza being

delivered to other judges houses and their families in the name of her son. in addition you had brad raffensperger, not only his family, the attorney general of georgia during the 2020 election whose daughter-in-law was met on their property with someone who was intending to just intimidate her. not only that, you have the politicians this week as a result of the recording -- host: are you still there? you were talking about the recording. i'm guessing the advertisement where they were telling members of the military and national guard to ignore illegal orders? caller: no, no. the ice agents, people who support ice agents wearing masks. they are in the office or at their job and they are being

docs to and so on and so forth. my point is the opposing people who do not wear masks, all the judges who get pizza sent to their home in the name of esther solace's son, who were killed in their home. host: we heard that point, but would video were you referencing? caller: more about the masks. so, you can't justify the masks because they get doxxed because there are too many other people in this world. the video was the six people and that was the end of my story bringing it back to current day. you can't justify the masks. you really can't. host: gloria in kansas on the line for republicans. caller: hi. i just wanted to make a comment about the ice people in minnesota.

if the people would stay home and mind their own business and live their lives and let ice do their job, there wouldn't be any problems at all. ice has been around forever and ever, and they have always gone to all communities and got criminals and there has been no uproar over it. i think the democrats, the governors and mayors, are, um -- using this to try to do a russia collusion thing because they are instigating all of this, all of this stuff in minnesota. another thing, that poor good girl that got shot, she did hit the officer, the ice agent, and

he has internal injuries. when the democrats don't have any common sense. they listen to cnn and they don't tell the truth. they don't tell the truth of the whole story. i think people should respect our law enforcement people and leave them alone and let them do their job. there have been no citizens arrested unless they were attacking ice officers, which is a crime. host: lewis in new jersey on the line for independents. good morning, lewis. caller: one comment about the gentleman who called about the illegals getting jobs.

well, they tried to pass a law that everybody had to e-verify before they got hired, and the democrats wouldn't pass that, o k. another thing is, when obama deported 3 million illegals when he was president, ice was everywhere but no one was attacking them. it was quiet. they went in and out, taking people out, which ice was doing until they made a big deal about it. my top story is walz is an idiot, you know. that lady was in minnesota that one day and they had two people in the back of a car and people are screaming at her.

why did you take them? that guy over there molested children and that guy over there in children. this is the kind of people the democrats are protecting. they are criminals. and that's that. that's all they are getting. not one peep when obama deported to million of them. thank you. host: angela in maryland on the line for democrats. good morning, angela. caller: i will give you the exact top news story of the week. it is in the hill today. it says biggest u.s. grid operator appears to stop short of reforms pushed by trump and bipartisan governors. this is actually a topic i called about 60 days ago on a cnbc article similar to this topic. the pjm grid is the largest grid

and the ai data centers are increasing the costs for all of the households. in 2024-25 to buy electricity was two point 2 billion. in 2025-26 it went to 14.7 billion. pjm put out a memo this month that the 2026-27 to buy electricity is over 16 billion. the problem is -- host: if i can pause eve so other folks can be aware of the article you are referencing -- if i can pause you for a second so other people can be aware of the article you're referencing, the biggest u.s. grid operator appears to stop short of reforms pushed by trump and bipartisan governors. after the trump administration and a coalition of bipartisan governors called on the biggest u.s. electric grid operator to enact reforms to cut electricity

prices, the operator announced its own plan that doesn't include any key details of the bipartisan proposal. the grid operator, pjm, which serves the east coast and midwest, said it would seek to incentivize data centers to bring their own power sources to the table, including by offering expedited connections to the grid, power-hungry data centers are expected to be a major source of electricity demand in the years ahead. if they don't bring their own power sources along they could add to rising prices and reliability concerns for ordinary people. caller: let me follow up with that. again, in two years it has quadrupled to buy this electricity. it pushes up the price of a kilowatt hour. i will pay the same for a kilowatt hour at my house the same that an ai data center is. not only that, pjm goes into in that article and there memo from

the last press release, they are worried about blackouts. blackouts in america because of ai data centers. it could be a really big win for trump if he has the republican congress dropped some sort of a bill, witch i know the democrats will support because like the article says it is bipartisan. i give trump credit that he is pushing this, but it will need federal legislation, because the states are not going to be able to do it because the grid is connected in 14 different states that his 14 different governors. we will have to be federal law. host: i want to read one more thing and get your response. you were talking about what the grid operator is doing. one of the things that the bipartisan group and trump were calling for was for tech companies and data center operators to bring their own power. there is a story about this in marketplace. microsoft promises to fully pay for electricity, replenish water

that data centers use. the tech giant laid out a five point plan to address backlash in communities around the country over ai infrastructure build outs. microsoft is pledging to pay for the full cost borne by communities where ai data centers are being built. the tech giant says that it will work to keep electric bills from rising and water resources from being drained by the giant server farms. microsoft's announcement comes amid growing public backlash against data centers that has led to tens of billions of dollars in projects being delayed or canceled in recent months. you were saying this needs a federal solution? caller: if you believe you are going to take the good word of the billionaire companies, if you believe their good word i have a bridge in brooklyn to sell you. there has to be a federal law on this and i think i could be a big win for trump and republicans in them in terms if they could get a federal law to stop this. there is no way our electricity

bill should double and even pjm says they are worried about blackouts. this is crazy. the only thing that will stop these billionaires is an actual law. they are word means nothing to me -- their good word means nothing to me. host: regina on the line for republicans. caller: hi there. i love your voice and approach to people. it is perfect. we love to talk. i don't much of the news because i don't believe half of it. i don't even believe 9/11. that is how bad i hate ai. i believe the fall in genesis had something to do with us being overall dead. host: i know you said you don't pay attention to the news but our segment is for the top news story of the week. was there something particular you were following this week?

caller: kimberly, i'm saying all these people complaining, i love that they have a chance to speak, but we don't complain in the world we live in now. we write it to god a petition what in the hell we want to happen. we don't sit and complain about this and that. we have people in charge now that know the rules, that we are under one god, and by the authority in me, as we all have god in us as our soul, we each have equal authority of god in respect to our person -- host: we have the idea. john on the line. caller: my top news story is greenland. i don't know how trump and the republican party could dismiss our relationship with nato since world war ii. america has a false security about these two oceans protecting us. we had terminate land on our shores, japan land on our shores, we had 9/11 that came

over our shores. you know, the iron dome over israel, it failed miserably -- it failed miserably on the day israel was attacked. israel had the united states as an ally to help them. most republicans say go to greenland because of their schedule. what is more important? national security or a birthday party? it is trump using tariffs to strong-arm our nato allies, this is not the america i remember. we helped each other, you know? now the world is looking at america fighting with each other in america. we have a war going on in america. this is unbelievable what this country came to know. like, those masked federal agents in minnesota. they are masked because if they

did not have masks on you find out that they are january 6th rioters. facial recognition is why they wear the masks. that is all i have to say. host: don was mentioning the bipartisan delegation that went to denmark to discuss the ongoing tensions around greenland, but this past week there were meetings here in washington about this as well. there is a story about that in politico. denmark, greenland, failed to win the trump team over. u.s. allies hoped meeting senior trump officials would defuse tensions and tough talk on greenland. it didn't. denmark and greenland still have a fundamental disagreement with the u.s. over president donald trump's desire to control the arctic territory. denmark's foreign minister said on wednesday, and his greenland counterpart, finally had their chance to turn down the temperature at the white house

after more than a year of aggressive internet trolling, statements, and demands from the u.s. their conversation did little to dissuade trump and his team from their hold on greenland. "we didn't manage to change the american position," he told reporters after the meeting. " it's clear the president has a wish of conquering over greenland. we made it very clear this is not in the interest of the kingdom." they took pains to describe this session as respectful, frank, and constructive, but their frustration that their longtime ally would not cooperate was clear. yesterday president trump responded to a question about the future of nato if they don't help the u.s. acquire greenland. here is his response. [video clip] >> will you pull out of nato if it doesn't help you acquire greenland? pres. trump: we will see. nato has been dealing with greenland. we need greenland for national security very badly. if we don't have it we have a big hole in national security, especially when it comes to what we are doing in terms of the

golden dome and all of the other things. we have a lot of investments in military. we've got the strongest military in the world and it is only getting stronger. you saw that with venezuela. you saw that with the attack on iran with knocking out their nuclear capabilities. yeah, we are talking to nato. >> mr. president, mr. president, mr. president. pres. trump: i don't talk about that. host: back to your calls, the top news story of the week, dave and baltimore, maryland on the line for democrats, good morning, dave. caller: good morning. i want to start off by saying, a lot of your colors are -- callers are creatures of a decrypted past -- decrypted

past where protesters were about the be shot like in kent state, but the constitution gives us a first amendment right to protest peacefully, and clearly you can see on videos where people were across the street, 100 feet away from them, and getting hit by grenades, blast grenades, whatever you call them. bang grenades and pepper balls, and all kinds of other ballistic things shot at them. so, clearly they are hiding their faces so they cannot be held accountable. once retake this country back, somebody has to pay for the damages that they have created, and furthermore these creatures that are calling in on the other side are saying that everything they are doing is right, people need to stay home, obama did

this and nobody attacked ice. with these people are actually singing in our reality -- are actually saying in our reality is this is white privilege. everything goes down to white privilege because they would not let obama do half of the things that this guy in the office, the white house is doing. society was based -- the fabric of society is based on assimilation. we cannot assimilate with creatures. we just have to -- host: we got the idea. christina in cedar rapids. good morning. caller: first of all, you have so many different going on they are hard to address. i would like to say this to people. we need to look at this and the big picture of everything. they have divided us from left to right, and on both sides they

divided different areas in there, ok. somebody said something about the declaration of independence. i would like to take a moment -- please, do not cut me off -- to read this to the people. this is the declaration of independence. it becomes necessary for people to dissolve the political stands that connected them to one another to assume among the tyrants of the earth a separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's god entitle them. ha respect to the opinions of mankind require that they should declare the causes in which causes to separation. we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. endowed by their creator with unalienable rights. unalienable means unviolatable. among these are life, liberty,

and pursuit of happiness. to secure these rights we instituted the government. driving their power from the consent of the governed, the people. that is just the beginning. i highly suggest all of this misinformation, we have all of these national months. why don't we have a national factual information month where we can have all of the representatives, and i'm sure that they can do something over all of the channels, and we can get down to the bottom of everything. individual accountability has to happen. they are getting rid of so much. every time they do something the other side yells we are getting them back in elections but no one is held accountable and they move on to something else. we have tacked on so many problems. the government is there for the people. not to line their pockets, not to start wars.

they are therefore the people. they need to start concentrating on us. host: before you go out -- never mind. we lost you. let's hear from jimmy in santa ana, california on the line for independents. caller: the lady was right on, kimberly. i have given up watching. i used to watch msnbc on a regular basis. all i do is what you guys now for about a year or so. the reason that i turned off msnbc as they said that trump was going to lose iowa and he won by 20 points. i thought, you know what, i'm getting a lot of this information. the propaganda in this country is beyond the pale. i watched -- my biggest thing is minnesota. the people in minnesota, the governor and the mayor, came out within minutes or our saying that it was murder.

kristi noem says they are terrorists. take questions from the media for the people. my party, the democratic party, is afraid of questions because they are getting everyone else to fight their fights for them. host: you said you are a member of the democratic party but called in on the independent line. we will wrap up there for the hour, appreciate everyone who called in. later on "washington journal" punchbowl news financial services reporter brandon patterson will join us to discuss president trump's call for 10% cap on credit card interest and other measures to address affordability. after the break, we will talk with propublica journalist nicole foy about ice enforcement under trump and her investigation into the use of force by immigration officials. we will be right back. ♪ >> monday, watch c-span2 as we

present all day programming commemorating martin luther king jr. day. journalist jonathan discusses the life and work of martin luther king jr.. it is the first cup runs a biography of the civil rights leader in more than 30 years. at 10:25 eastern, the july 1963 interview martin luther king jr. bike for international and domestic journalists for press conference usa, a u.s. information agency series that was distributed internationally. at 5:10 p.m., boise state history professor jill gill on martin luther king's particle strategies in the civil rights movement up to his assassination. later at 8:00 p.m. eastern, reginald and best talks about reading dr. king's letter from birmingham jail while he was in jail and the impact it had on his life since his release, including his founding of the organization freedom reads that builds libraries in prisons. at 9:00 p.m. eastern, cnn anchor

abby philip and her book "a dream deferred: jesse jackson and the fight for black political power." watch our special holiday coverage of martin luther king jr. day monday beginning at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2. sunday on c-span's "q&a" university at austin history professor joseph shares his book freedom season talking about the pivotal events of 1963 that impacted the civil rights movement in america. that year marked the centenary of lincoln's's emancipation proclamation, the assassinations of president kennedy, and mississippi civil rights activist medgar evers and the bombing of the 16th street baptist church in birmingham, alabama which killed four young girls. >> 1963i think is the most pivotal year of the 1960's. it is the year that gives us both triumphs and tragedies. and it's really the year that

makes the 1960's the 60's. so it is civil rights insurgency, it is the kennedy administration going back and forth with activists like martin luther king jr. and others about what to do next. we see a right wing insurgency. george wallace becomes one of the pivotal figures of the year and people like william f. buckley and the national review are engaged in a war of ideas with people at james baldwin, who becomes the best selling author and really perhaps the most pivotal figure in the entire year. so it's really an extraordinary or. >> peniel joseph with his book "freedom season" sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a." you can listen to "q&a" and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we are now joined by nicole foy, who is an immigration and labor

reporter at propublica, to keep going with the conversation about ice enforcement under the trump administration. welcome to "washington journal" nicole: thank you for having me. host: you and your colleagues at propublica did an investigation and found more than 40 cases over the past year of immigration agents using life-threatening tactics. can you describe what those tactics are, what you found in your investigation? nicole: my coworker mackenzie funk and i were specifically looking at how often immigration agents over the course of the past year across the country are using -- were using these tactics that in addition to being banned or highly discouraged by their own policies are also things that many police departments across the country have banned since 2020 and the murder of george floyd. these are choke and restraints which are specifically banned by the department of homeland security and department of

justice's use of force policy unless there is a call for using deadly force. and then we also found a number of cases where people were, where immigration agents were kneeling on people's necks, kneeling on their backs in ways that can seriously restrict blood flow or airflow, in ways that have proven to be very dangerous for people. and again, it is something that police department's in particular across the country have also taken out of their training and something that they are allowed to do ever since 2020 and some before that. host: there is a particular example that you found in massachusetts. what happened there? nicole: i think the case within massachusetts is very useful t kind of analyze from this point of whether, you know, this was a time when our experts who we showed all these videos to would consider that this type of

deadly force was required. it involved immigration agents who have stopped a car that contained a man and woman and their one-year-old daughter. they had come for the woman. she had some pending assault charges but the man, the man, carlos, he didn't have any charges. he had a pending asylum case. the problem was the mother did not want to leave without her one-year-old child and be detained and carlos did not want to let go of either of them. immigration officers repeatedly, as we saw police bodycam from the police that responded to the scene because there were so many protesters and bystanders, they, you know, you could hear them talking with immigration agents and immigration agents explaining that they really don't want to do something to, you know, to very forcefully separate this family.

however, then you can see in the videos that something changes and an immigration officer can be seen on bystander footage reaching into the car and putting his thumb, his fingers onto the neck of carlos, who appears on camera to violently seize. he appears to be having convulsions so hard that is one-year-old daughter is shaking with him. he has filed a lawsuit in massachusetts alleging excessive force out of this encounter. and he has also alleged that immigration officers after, you know, after he was eventually allowed to leave with his daughter, he alleged that he still had some serious medical, he needed some medical attention and it was not provided to him. we were able to back this up and bodycam footage that we watched as well. you can hear on screen when an immigration officer says he's fine to paramedics and he alleges he was not able to get the medical attention he needed, even after experiencing this

really deadly restraint. host: now, what does dhs policy specifically say about tactics like these? nicole: dhs policy says that these are forms of deadly force, using a carotid restraint, a chokehold around someone's neck. it is the kind of thing that you're not supposed to just use when a subject is not complying, when a subject is fleeing, when a subject is maybe not resisting. it is supposed to be something that you use only if there is a serious threat to the officer, serious dangerous life-threatening. . threat and only if there is no other option. that's why we showed so many of these videos to former law enforcement professionals but also former officials and the department of homeland security and asked them, you know, is this a situation in which you would believe you have no other option book to use this type of restraint?

by and large, they did not believe that that was a, you know, that these deadly restraints were called for in many of these situations. host: you reached out to dhs. today ever cite a real physical threat to agents in their response to these? nicole: they didn't. we sent to them all of the videos we used in our story and asked them, can you please share anything that we should know, anything, extra context? let's get on the phone. walk us through why officers made the decision to use these things that are banned in your policy unless there is a threat. we cannot see necessarily, we cannot see a deadly threat. walk us through this. while they did respond and give some answers, usually allegations that many of the people involved had assaulted officers, they roundly stood

behind his immigration agents and said that they acted with the utmost professionalism and that they used reasonable amount of force. however, each time we asked them, and i asked a couple of follow-up times, can you point to us, why was it necessary to use a very dangerous carotid restraint on a young father who was physically holding his child in a car simply because he appears to not be complying? was there something we are missing? why did you use a chokehold on a 16-year-old u.s. citizen being detained with his father in houston? while custer what was so dangerous about the situation. really, the only answers they had was that they believe their officers used reasonable force and in many cases they allege that offscreen before the camera started rolling that these different subjects of these,

that they were pursuing had assaulted officers. host: you mentioned a u.s. citizen in that example. you and others at propublica have also been tracking ice arrests of u.s. citizens and the pastor, finding that more than 170 u.s. citizens have been held by immigration agents. your reporting found they had been kicked, dragged, and detained for days. homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen was outside the white house on thursday, asked by reporters about the rise of ice arrests of u.s. citizens over the past year. here's what she had to say. >> are you ok with federal agents and officers violating rights by asking for papers without reasonable? >> every single action our eyes officers take is according to the line following protocols that we have used for years, that this administration has used, the previous

administration has used. they are doing everything correctly and over and over again in litigation and courts we have proven that day did the right thing. >> why are we seeing americans being asked on the street to provide proof of citizenship in minnesota? is that targeted enforcement and are you advising americans to carry proof of citizenship? >> in every situation, we are doing targeted enforcement. if we are on a target and doing an operation, there may be individual surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they are there and having them validate their identity. that's what we've always done. and asking people who they are so that we don't lose in the surroundings. if they do break our federal laws, we will detained them as well. host: based on your reporting, what's your reaction to the secretary's statements? nicole: my immediate reaction is that is largely in line with what the department of homeland security has told me the entire year when i have sent them numerous cases of immigration agents detain u.s. citizens and asked them, you know, can you explain this?

they have said that in response to almost every case. sometimes they have said this person was detained not to question their citizenship, but in order to detain them because they, you know, they committed a crime, they assaulted an officer. while certainly that may be the case for some of the people who were detained by immigration agents, there are some people that have cases pending still, charges pending. so many people we found who had been arrested either they had been arrested and asked questions about their citizenship and we have full video footage of the encounter and we can personally see no assault. but also that they were released on the spot. i think of the case of a young man in alabama who has since now been detained twice on his construction site, and the first time as he was taken to the ground, he was yelling that he

was a u.s. citizen, even as officers didn't listen and he wanted to show his id. and later, even though he filmed the entire encounter, the response of department of homeland security was to say, well, he assaulted officers. but he was never charged with that and many of the people who have been accused of assaulting officers after they were detained, often because of questioning their citizenship, they were released without charges, their cases have been dropped or they were never even charged with that at all. host: we are going to be taken callc for propublica's nicole foy. if you're a democrat, you can call at (202) 748-8000. republicans at (202) 748-8001. independents at (202) 748-8002. if you have experience with ice that you'd like to share, you can call us at (202) 748-8003. let's hear from hank in south carolina on our line for

republicans. good morning. caller: did you actually see all these atrocities going on? nicole: yes. i don't know which exactly you are referring to. but when it comes to the, our footage and our investigation into chokeholds, yes. we found in the case of these more than 40 incidents, the vast majority of them are caught on camera in footage and then we showed that footage to police officers and to law enforcement -- to former law enforcement officials. some of these incidents were filmed from multiple angles. some of them, i am thinking of one particular case in minneapolis that i added to the list right before we published. i kind of watched play out on a livestream. so, yes, we were physically able to see many of these on footage. but yeah, i hope that answers

your question. sorry. caller: any of this stuff going on when obama was removing people? nicole: that's a great question. we asked many of the especially their former department of on that security officials. these are people who in one case one man has spent 20 years in both border patrol, hsi working for both the obama administration and for the first trump administration in various high levels. -- high-level roles. they said that especially the use of chokeholds, this was something that was not even controversial when it was formally banned in 2023 in this updated use of force because it was understood that you are not supposed to use these type of tactics anymore, that they were dangerous. they were even dangerous for officers sometimes. so, we did try to look and find

previous cases like pre-2025 and found very little. there's a lot of attention on immigration enforcement right now and everybody is filming everything. we are never going to know exactly the exact numbers, especially if the government is not want to track this. as far as u.s. citizens being detained, one of the things i wrote about in my story is this is something we have a very long history of in this country, especially in the past few administrations. there has been a long history of u.s. citizens being improperly identified, often because of, you know, they have a similar name as someone, they have on their record that they've had an encounter with an ice official but the database that whichever official is referring to does not update that this encounter proved that they were a u.s. citizen. this is something that dhs, ice in particular was found by a government watchdog report has a

serious issue with this. that they mostly use data from the last year of the obama administration and the first four years of the trump administration, the first trump administration, as an example. but it's been a long history. however, all of our experts that we spoke to and certainly in past coverage of this issue says that what we are seeing right now with the detention of u.s. citizens, both because of, you know, during these protests and also because of assumptions about the u.s. citizenship, they have yet to see this level. we would like to ignore about -- would like to know more about the exact numbers but the government is not tracking this or at least has not provided the information we are asking for. host: celeste is in pennsylvania on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: i just wanted to say the way they are doing this with all this force and everything, it just shows you that trump told us what he was going to do.

the only thing he did run on january 6 was not have an army to back him up. now he learned by hiring the worst of the worst but they are very smart. you cannot have a coup if you don't, you know, have an army behind you. $55,000 sign-on bonus, cutting the time in half that they get trading, six and 7 -- training, six and seven men on one person. when trump says that he's going to become an autocrat, she needs an army, and i think this is what that is. it's crazy to me. they are talking about it on every station, every channel. they are just not saying it out loud that he is preparing his army to take over. and like you said -- he said, there will be no votes. he's in, he's in till he dies and then his kids take over and that's all i have to say. host: before you follow-up, i

want to share some pulling about how americans view the effect of ice enforcement actions in cities. 51% say that these enforcement actions make cities less safe. 31% say they make the city safer. 18% say that they are not having much effect. obviously, our previous caller was in that 51%. what are some of the other reaction that you have seen? nicole: i think i have been really struck by the responses when we showed her like particularly are chokehold videos that we had collected to these law enforcement professionals. they have pointed out many times in many cases that not only is this something that, you know, in one case a trainer of federal officials, including ice officials said that this is something that they are trained not to do. . and especially dhs asked that they are specifically trained not to do this. one said this is bad policing.

these are examples of situations that quickly spiraled out of control. many of our experts said that this appears to be because of the fact that immigration officials are more and more relying on these kind of roving patrols and kind of unplanned immigration enforcement activity. one photographer kind of described it like as he was following them around the charlotte area and taking photos of the immigration operations that it really seemed like they were just stopping in random neighborhoods and going and stopping and going to pursue someone if they thought they might be undocumented. our experts said that that particular operation in contrast to what previously immigration officials mostly used, which was much more targeted operations, knowing exactly who they are going after, that they believe that this lack of targeting and more spontaneous pursuits is really what kind of sets up

these situations to spiral out of control. you don't know necessarily much about the person you are pursuing. you don't know who's around them, what type of bystanders may show up. and that's one of the things that they have pointed out, is that many of these officers are acting in ways, at least according to the footage that we asked them to review, that would get many police officers disciplined in some way. host: billy is in claremont, california on our line for independents. good morning, billy. caller: good morning, america. this is billy live from claremont, california. yes, everybody is bashing ice. i am in favor of ice, ma'am, and i give them credit because that's the federal government.

this campaign first started, nobody gives ice credit for being polite, being professional in the way they went about doing their job. we had all of these illegal immigrants spitting on them, beating them up, cursing at them, throwing things at their cars, and just slashing their tires and everything they are doing now. nobody pointed the finger at those bad people but ice, they are only trying to protect themselves. they are only trying to protect the united states from being invaded by illegal aliens. ice is not violent. they are just out there protecting the nation, trying to protect themselves. remember this, america, ice members have families, too. solve this bad press coming from the liberal media, this is why i'm an independent. maybe i should be the next president if i threw my hat in the ring, but other than that, i support ice. trump, he's only out of line when it comes to tariffs and the way he's running the rest of the country. but immigration he is spot on. if we don't have ice, who do we

have? host: we are just about out of time and i want to give nicole a chance to respond to your point. nicole: i don't know if you have a specific question, billy, that i could answer for you. caller: please, guess. why don't you answer this question for me, nicole? why don't you give ice some credit? why don't you criticize the thugs and the illegals out there that are, you know, cursing them out, throwing rocks at them? host: i think we've got the sense of your question. nicole: i understand. i would say, first of all, you are talking about a a protest for this coverage that we have seen around the country. i want to tell you that certainly based on a number of people have been arrested out of incidents that you described. the vast majority, certainly not everyone, have been u.s. citizens or legal residents. i don't know what you are seeing in particular that would make you think that those folks are

not here legally. but many of the protesters who have been arrested, and that's honestly how we have seen so many u.s. citizens get arrested, is in these protests or kind of, you know, they've been accused of obstructing or assaulting ice officers. i would just say that all year i've been asking for immigration officials, particularly top officials, to make available anyone in ice or border patrol or dhs, i've reached out to many leaders, asking them, i want to understand the context. we want to know more about the way you've done it. we at propublica have yet to get an interview in response to these questions. but we are certainly eager to understand and include the, you know, the perspective of the administration because that is our job, is to pursue the truth and give everyone a chance to respond. but it's also our job at

propublica we believe to pursue the truth even if it involves holding the government accountable. that's kind of how we view our role. host: marvin is in iowa on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: i was kind of in agreement with the gentleman from california. and i wish that people would just look at what, where the money goes. who is supporting these people that are out of work protesting and doing what? what are these people, are they educated? what are they, laid off? do they just have nothing better to do? who is paying these people? and i always hear about the in the past tense, follow the money, follow the money. they really need to report on following the money in all cases, not just this, but elections and/or discriminations. because it seems to me you have nobody that wants to work,

number one in this country. those that do work just want to keep their jobs. i don't understand, who is the one that is feeding these people like antifa? can you comment on that? i really think that people put the cart before the horse. are the laws the laws? host: i am going to let nicole respond. nicole: i have not, i will tell you the truth, i have not personally done an investigation into i guess the funding of what you are referring to, some of these protests. i know there has been coverage on that. i have been mostly focused on looking at how immigration enforcement has played out around the country this year. i will tell you when it comes to the number of u.s. citizens that i have interviewed who have been caught either, many of them were not even protesting. there are so many people who were detained by immigration officials while they were on

their way to work or when they were stepping out in their neighborhood or when they saw something happening to a loved one or a friend or a stranger in front of them on the street and stepped in to, you know, in this case, immigration officials alleged they interfered with the operation. there are many protests across this country every day for any variety of reason. but not everybody who has been detained or that you see on tv, you know, getting involved and sometimes experiencing extreme force where you been really intending to be at a protest at all. so many of them, we have one woman in l.a. who had just gotten dropped off at work when suddenly there was, you know, a pursuit of different street vendors in l.a. and she ended up getting detained even though she was a u.s. citizen. that is the hard truth, is many of these people were not there to protest. host: thank you so much.

nicole foy is is in and labor reporter at propublica. really appreciate your time this morning. later this morning on "washington journal," we are going to be joined by southern methodist university center for presidential history director jeffrey engel to talk about the 35th anniversary of operation desert storm. but next after the break, we will talk with punchbowl news financial services reporter brendan pedersen about president trump's call for a 10% cap on credit card interest and other measures to address affordability. we will be right back. ♪ >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. at noon eastern, mary rush, author of replaceable you, looks

advanced in's and repairing and replacing parts of our bodies. on america's book club, baseball hall of famer cal ripken junior joins david rubenstein to discuss his legendary career, his work as a best-selling author, and gives viewers a tour of memorabilia from his decades in baseball. at 8:15 p.m. eastern, pulitzer prize winning author rick atkinson, author of trilogies on the american revolution in world war ii, gives a tour of his home office and talked about his research process. at 10:15 p.m. eastern, reginald lane betts talks about the impact that dr. king's letter birmingham jail had on him when he was in prison. including his founding of the organization freedom reads that builds libraries in prisons. wash book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. >> watch' america's book clu,

c-span's bald original series with our guest pulitzer prize winner and former u.s. poet laureate rita dove, who has authored several collections of poetry. rita: don't think you can forget her. don't even try. she's not going to budge. no choice but to grant her space, crown her with sky, first she is one of the many and she is each of us. >> she joins our host, renowned author and civic leader david rubenstein. david: did your teacher say, well, look, poetry is not a big career future, you should write prose? did people tell you that? rita: i didn't even know it was something you could do and live your life. i was writing poetry from the age of 10 i guess. but it was always a secret thing. it was a thing that i wrote and thought this is my secret, it was my thing that i enjoyed.

i didn't realize that a little black girl could become a poet. >> watch america's book club with rita dove the sunday at 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific, only on c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we are ready for a discussion on some of the proposals that president trump has had to address affordability, including a potential 10% cap on credit card interest rates. for this conversation, we are joined by brendan pedersen, who is a financial services reporter for punchbowl news. welcome to "washington journal" brendan: thank you for having me. host: the president did say that he wanted to address credit card debt. i wanted to give you some numbers on that which you probably familiar with. credit card debt in the united states exceeds $1.21 trillion. average interest rate is at 22%. the average credit card debt per

american was over $6,000, $6,523 per american in 2025. 37% of adults carry a balance on the credit cards. talk about this proposal from the president, will be know about it, and how it might affect those numbers. brendan: the proposal, what you see is what you get. the president announced last friday that he wants to see credit card interest rates capped at 10%. he has gone a lot of follow-up cushions. do you need legislation? almost certainly yes. when i have heard karoline leavitt talk about this proposal, i have heard her say we are expecting the credit card companies to come out with products like this. we have seen some marketing pushes along these lines. i think the company bilt, 10% credit card, no problem.

that's an introductory rate and it will eventually go up to something like 30% apr. you are hearing knows about the president's proposal but very little action so far. host: what would actually take to implement something like this in terms of what goes into credit card rates and what it would take to lower them? brendan: it would certainly take an act of congress at this point to institute some kind of larger cap. right now leaders on the hill, mostly republicans, are saying maybe not. there is some interest on capitol hill and changing some things on credit cards. when you are thinking about a 10% cap when the rates are closer to 22%, that is a pretty big intervention in credit card markets. i would not tell you that it's impossible to economically pull that off. there is data out of vanderbilt, their policy accelerator, that has found that may be a 15% credit card rate would be more, cap i should say, would be manageable without the kinds of like hair on fire risks that

bankers will tell you there are as soon as you talk about any kind of government price cap, price controls. in theory the bankers will tell you. once we start talking about credit card interest caps, the availability of credit goes down, which means fewer people with worse credit scores are not going to be able to use that credit card. a credit card is a nice financial tool to have in your tool bag, no one would dispute that. it is definitely on the margins that you can make changes. talking about a 10% cap, that's a pretty serious intervention. you can look at the margins and say this is probably doable if there's political will for it, which based on my conversations with lawmakers right now isn't exactly daria. host: there have dachshund there yet. host: they have been a couple of ideas floated in congress to address credit card swipe fees, interest rates. you had a post on x just about that that president donald trump appears to endorse the credit card competition act and gives an at a boy to senator robert

marshall. the banks will not like this one bit. president trump set on truth social come everybody should support great republican senator robert marshall's great credit card competition act in order to stop the out-of-control slight fever above. roger is a fantastic senator. what would this legislation to and what other legislation might be in the works to address credit cards in particular brendan: the credit card competition act is a bill led by dick durbin of illinois and roger marshall of kansas. it is probably the single most lobbied about bill, as far as the banking sector is concerned, over the last several years. . it is a swipe fee reform bill. in the united states, swipe fees are pretty high especially compared to our friends in europe. when you swipe your card or use a credit card in a transaction at a retailer, the retailer is paying a certain percentage fee to process that transaction with the credit card company with that bank. in this case, in this country it

is about 2%, a little up, a down depending on the merchant. in europe, it is capped at 2%. a lot of retailers have been complaining about just how much they have been spending on swipe fees. those prices in theory are passed along to customers. if you've been to a mama popstar, you have probably seen taped out front on the register come credit card expenses, 4% charge. they are trying to cover that margin. that is a case where consumers are directly paying for that swipe fee. what roger marshall and dick durbin have been trying to do for the last couple of years now is say we are not doing price caps. this is not we are bringing a ceiling into swipe fees. they want to introduce a requirement that credit card companies actually offer a cheaper payment processor in the matter of actually payment transactions. right now, the credit card market is largely dominated by two big companies, visa and mastercard. they move their prices in

tandem. you can dispute whether it is a duopoly but it certainly has the qualities of kind of a cartel. what they are arguing, marshall and durbin, is that if you just make the companies offer a cheaper company, prices could go down on swipe fees. let's get some actual economic competition. banks take this for a lot of reasons. they will say we make a lot of money off this but we also make our payment rails more secure and we also offer credit card rewards. don't you like your credit card rewards? it would be a shame if something happened to your credit card rewards. host: credit card rewards are paid for by those swipe fees, by the interest paid by folks who don't pay off their cars every month, etc. brendan: exactly right. that's the transaction, the exchange that people get. some credit card rewards can be very lucrative, sometimes more marginal. where is this money coming from? swipe fees and interest paid by the people who are not paying that maximum balance every month. that's the exchange.

that's the deal we have made. it can change. host: i want to talk are of the president's other measures to address affordability. we talked about that cap on credit card interest rates at 10%. he's suggesting a ban on institutional investors in the single-family home market. he has suggested buying $200 billion in mortgage bonds to bring down housing costs. allowing 401(k) funds to be used for home down payments, which some people can already do in certain cases. trump is expected to unveil a broader proposal on that at davo's next week. how much impact do you think some of these measures would actually have on what people are calling this affordability crisis? brendan: it's a really good question. the answer is like, i'm not totally sure. i would say most experts are not totally sure. a lot of the devil is in the details with these proposals.

i will talk about the institutional investor's proposal to ban them from buying single-family homes. nationally, if you zoom out, a company like blackstone has something like 1% of the single-family homes nationwide. that's not a huge supply but it's also not nothing. where it gets interesting is when you look at more regional problems. they own more housing stock in certain places. i remember this being a bigger problem in ohio, for instance. when senate banking chairman sharad brown was still in office, the democratic senator from ohio, he introduced a bill that he said was targeted at predatory institutional investors buying homes in ohio. he gets knocked out of office by bernie moreno. bernie moreno is now on the senate banking committee, a republican. as soonest trump make this announcement, brandon marino shows up -- bernie moreno shows up, i have a bill for this. there is a bipartisan appetite.

you can see how trump entering the space opens the overton window. host: the overton window being the realm of acceptable ideas and policy that shifts over time. brendan: yes. there is interest here. it is very local. it is very regional. the dynamics of who the construction builders are, what your zoning regulations are, all of that is incredibly close in proximity, local politics. there is less things that congress can do in a lot of ways, but that's not something folks have been trying. there's another bill called the road to housing act which is led by elizabeth warren, one of the top progressives, and tim scott, the chairman of the senate banking committee. they do not agree on a lot but they have the road to housing act, which would generally try to make it easier for developers to build, reducing some key regulations about manufactured

housing policy and getting rid of the steel chassis, for instance, which was kind of a holdover from when homes had to be driven from manufacturer to home. now a lot of homes can be built on site. that's something that can save thousands of dollars per home. that's a big one coming down the pipe. host: i want to follow up on your point about elizabeth warren and the president kind of lining up with someone who's been a very traditional opponent. the story about this in nbc news. trump turns to progressives for ideas on affordability. the president called senator elizabeth warren, democrat of massachusetts on monday, as she said they discussed legislation to cap credit card interest rates. it feels almost unreal in the environment that we are in to hear about this kind of communication on an issue. what is unique about this? brendan: there is a lot of things unique about this. for one, the day that warren gets this call from trump, and i should say it was an unscheduled call. she told reporters edges came from a 202 number in the

washington area. she had no reason to believe it was the president who was calling her. earlier that day she had given a speech basically about economic populism and calling on fellow democrats to embrace this economic populist wind that has sort of gotten picked up by the trump administration. she is tongue democrats let's not worry so much about our corporate donors anymore, let's dig in on populism. she gives that speech and then an hour or two later she gets a call from the president of the united states. she says she talked to them both about the road to housing act, which almost got included in the annual defense policy package last december and it was eventually stripped out. and she also talked to him about credit cards and credit card rates, saying that we could reduce those rates if the president, trump, delivered and actually put his political will behind it. on the one hand, it is a remarkable story because they do not agree on a lot. every now and again trump will say something supportive and then say something sort of racially charged about her. it is a little bit of a mess.

and will show you that trump will cut a deal with anybody. trump is politically, ideologically agnostic in a way that i think we lose track of in the day to day turn of d.c. politics. host: we are going to be taking questions for brendan pedersen of punchbowl news. our phone lines are going to be regional for this segment. if you're an eastern or regional time zone, call (202) 748-8000. in the mountain are pacific time zone, (202) 748-8001. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. just let us know your name and where you are from. let's start with thomas in smithfield, north carolina. good morning. caller: yes. good morning, everybody. thank you for taking my call. yeah, i think the 10% rate is a fair rate, considering that a lot of people use credit. and for banks to have an extortion or a loan shark rate

of 15, 20, 25% is rather excessive. and you touched on the transaction fees on top of that that the retailer absorbs. but what we have to remember is consumption. i think there is a level of responsibility to the credit card companies offering easy credit for qualified people. and it's like selling candy on the corner there. people are going to take that, you know. it is a false sense of entrapment. my question to brendan is, do you think the banks should lower their rates, which i believe they do. and the marketing that they do is kind of an entrapment, but

then people fall for that trip. you touched on -- trap. you touched on mortgages there. are really think the whole financial industry should look at mortgages and look at the amortization tables and see how they are way leveraged towards the banks where your principal payment and your interest payment, your interest is a fraction of what your principal payment is upfront. and that's why you have to have a 50 year mortgage, what they are entertaining. i think the industry, we need to look at the industry as the overall general functioning of the economy. credit is easily available to most -- host: i want to make sure we are getting to the questions you want brandon to address. it's about the banks and the rates that they sent more broadly and then about housing affordability and sort of how mortgage rates are amortized over time, correct? caller: correct. host: go ahead.

brendan: on the credit card piece, let me just say this, credit cards have never been more profitable for the banking industry. in the last 10 years, we have seen a pretty significant up tilt and exactly how much profit that banks get -- in exactly how much profit banks get. they call it a pure margin, it is like 14.3 -- apr margin. it is like 14.3% today from the credit card bureau. that's up from about 8% 10 years ago. when you think about who is making money off of credit cards. i should also say, part of the reason apr's and other things in the credit card market have become more expensive is because federal interest rates have gone up. the prime rate has gone up because of higher inflation in the economy. this is part of the pandemic era economy that is still working its way through. but at the same time, banks have created an engine with credit cards that are still very

profitable despite those higher costs. on mortgages, yes, you mentioned the 50 year mortgage. and we have not heard about it as much recently since the president first sort of tweeted an image of him and fdr on a piece of poster board with fdr, dirtier mortgage, trump -- 30 year mortgage, trump, 50 year mortgage. you are exactly right that a 50 year mortgage is really difficult to pay off in the long term. i've had many an expert refer to it as debt slavery to me as i have been talking about this. 30 year mortgage is kind of a sweet spot. if you can get a 20 year mortgage, exit even easier to pay it off as long as you can pay that rate. there's not a lot of serious interest in a 50 year mortgage because the politics of it are pretty dicey. host: you mentioned the consumer financial protection bureau which had all that credit card data you are referencing.

in response to some of trump's affordability proposals including that cap on credit card interest rates, there's been a lot of pushback from democrats that the cfpb was literally working to improve affordability, terrain and credit card companies, and the trump administration as part of its doge cuts has made significant cuts to that agency. how do you think this plays into the overall affordability narrative? brendan: that's a great question, especially on the narrative itself. it has definitely hurt the trump administration's case. when you talk to progressives like senator bernie sanders for instance who has his own 10% interest rate cap bill for credit cards, they just don't believe the president is serious about this and a lot of it has to do with the ways they have got the cfpb. the consumer financial protection bureau in its history before being mostly largely shut down in the early months of the trump administration, they saved consumers $20 billion. that is a huge sum of money.

a lot of that going after predatory lenders, people who are doing unfair debt collection practices. there is a lot of good things the cfpb did. they were summarily shut down by russ vought, who is technically the acting director of the cfpb as well as the director of the office of management and budget. it is that politics for them -- bad politics for them. the cfpb was may be the most popular federal agency, if people knew that it was. i will say it doesn't have the best p.r. in the world, in part because the banking industry despised the cfpb. they really didn't like how it worked, especially under the biden administration, when it was led by chopra, who had a very muscular understanding of what the cfpb could. he pushed very hard to make credit very accessible -- more accessible but also cracking down on bank practices and the practices of nonbank lenders.

doesn't help. the cfpb is still cooking. we saw a pretty significant change in the cfpb's budget during republican reconciliation. the one big beautiful bill that came through, senate banking republican's and republicans in the house financial services committee successfully cut the cfpb's long-term budget in half by going into the statute and sing the cfpb is allowed to get 12% of the fed's budget every year. we are going to make that 6%, 6.5%. that's going to be a really significant cut not now because the cfpb is not taking in all that much money. russ vought has only asked for i want to say 145 million dollars in budget this year. and the biting years, they were approaching 7, 8, $900 million. a future democratic administration is going to have a cfp budget that is basically cut in half and that will also have an impact on consumers. host: let's go to john in chicago. good morning, john. caller: good morning.

hey, really love the show. i am sort of an old-school capitalist guy. all the talk about forcing companies to do this and that, i've always wondered why we just couldn't force good old old school capitalism into this mix. i think we have a lot a brilliant business people getting into the credit card business that would bring chaos to the market and change. brendan: i think that's fair. and i think when you have something like the trump administration that's coming out and saying, like, lower this, cap this. you're going to have even before the government takes any formal responses, private actors in that market are going to try to capitalize. bilt introduced a 10% card rate that will, it's an introductory rate, it will get lower overtime. host: higher or lower? brendan: sorry, get higher.

that's just good old-fashioned marketing. we could see credit card companies make their whole thing we have cheaper apr than those guys. that's a possibility. but again, you have to remember these are profit-seeking actors and they are going to maximize profits. i was saying to kimberly before we started the show, i didn't realize that in the last couple of years between 2022 and 2024, the amount of interest being paid by u.s. consumers on their credit card bills has gone a lot higher. in 2022, they were paying $105 billion as a collective in the united states. just two years later, that number had to jump to $160 billion, an increase of more than 52%, just in interest. i am not somebody who is religiously following exactly what apr credit card is. i think that's most people. people are paying a lot of money on this that they might not be paying attention to. i think that's kind of whether capitalism hits the rubber of

the road. when people don't realize how much they are spending, it's easier for a free market to take advantage of that. host: connie is in ambler, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a question. well, no, more of a statement. it's interesting that you are saying trump went to elizabeth warren for these ideas. isn't it interesting that they are democratic ideas that are really better covering what we need to do in this state than the republican ideas because they have no ideas? no ideas on health care. no ideas on credit card. so tell me really, who is helping the american people? not the republicans. brendan: i think it is a very good point that the president is embracing these democratic ideas. i think the credit card interest rate is a good one. i should also say there have been populists in the republican party who have been thing this kind of thing, too. josh hawley, senator from

missouri, has also thrown his support behind a 10% credit card interest rate cap. he has in the past been supportive of the durban marshal credit card swipe fee bill. it's not like republicans don't have anybody in the mix who are doing this. but elizabeth warren, to your point, is the top democrat on the senate banking committee. she is easily the most influential democrat in the senate on economic policy except for maybe chuck schumer, who is the leader of the senate. she has a lot of sway with the democratic party establishment. your point is well taken. host: connie also mentioned health care and that whether or not the republicans have ideas on health care. i should point out that trump actually laid out a new framework this week to address health care costs. this is a story in axios. trump on thursday called on congress to pass a package of measures aimed at lowering drug

prices, insurance premiums, and increasing health cost transparency. the great health care plan is a response to democrats' attacks around expired affordable care act subsidies and an acknowledgment the gop could get blamed for health care affordability heading into the midterm elections. i mean, what should we take from the fact that this health care plan is coming out now? that these credit card ideas are coming out now? all of which probably need congress to do something. brendan: that's right. affordability is a big deal, you know. it is something that, even as inflation, we haven't even talked about inflation numbers recently. inflation annually right now is like 2.7%, according to the bureau of labor statistics. that is certainly not as high as it was during the biden years coming out of the pandemic but it's also much higher than inflation was in the years leading up to the pandemic. rates were near zero for a very long time, so much so that people were literally writing think pieces about, what happens

if inflation never comes back? it was a funny weird time. i was thinking about this on the way into c-span today, like, people are experiencing higher costs everywhere in their lives. they are clocking it kind of everywhere they go. for instance, i was at the grocery store yesterday and i saw a bag of doritos going for like eight dollars. i could remember when i first moved to d.c., that was a four dollar bag and that is just something that happens after several years of elevated inflation. to your point about all of the policies coming hurtling out of the trap administration right now, it does look like this administration is pretty worried about what the economy is doing to its base. you have to remember that biden was arguably washed out of office, i should say harris lost after being associated with biden because of inflation, because of high-cost politics. we saw worldwide incumbents after the pandemic get washed

out of office and the consistent thread from all these surveys and polls was inflation. the trump administration does not want a repeat of that, especially when the president itself has historically had very good branding associated with his economic policy. that's always been his strongest suit and now he's deeply underwater with voters on the economy. i think the lowest he was ever underwater with voters in the economy was like may be 9% on net in his first administration. he is easily in the double digits now. i want to say is closer to 20 or 30 points underwater but i haven't seen the recent polling. suffice it to say it is bad. it is bad. host: let's hear from evelyn in ohio. caller: good morning. i just wanted to make a quick statement and a question. one of the things that has not been mentioned is that the united states supreme court successfully destroyed usury laws that the states had in place back in the 1978 in the

market bank versus first omaha decision. once that decision was issued by the united states supreme court, interest rates on credit cards skyrocketed. they effectively destroyed the state's usury laws and congress has been complacent. i almost feel as an american that they are undertaken because this should have never happened. this really should have been overturned and i applaud president trump for trying to do what he's doing and i will listen to you. thank you. brendan: yeah, it's true that the national economy has really changed in the wake of that decision, and others. there's been a longer running trend. we are going to get into my favorite, bank regulatory stuff, so thank you. there have been a lot of changes . you are right. the pendulum has swung very far.

there is a lot of preemption in state law. this is something we are still fighting about. there are supreme court cases in the last couple of years that have look at the ability of states like california and illinois on all kinds of banking processes. the supreme court continues to side with the feds on this. it is a long-running trend allowing congress to regulate commerce. i don't see it changing anytime soon, absent a major change in congressional law. we are not there yet. this is a topsy-turvy time in american politics. i could see it. host: we will end it there. thank you so much. brendan pedersen is a financial reporter for punchbowl news. later this morning, we are going to talk with southern methodist university center for presidential history director jeffrey engel about the 35th anniversary of operation desert

storm. but after the break, it is open forum. you can start calling in now. here are the lines. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. we will be right back. ♪ >> monday, watch c-span2 as we present all day programming commemorating martin luther king junior day. the author of "king" discusses the life and work of martin luther king, jr. it is the first conference of biography of the civil rights leader in more than 30 years. at 10:25, the july 1963 interview of martin luther king

jr. for a u.s. information series distributed internationally. the boise state history professor on his clinical strategies in the civil rights movement up to his assassination in 1968. later, he talks about reading dr. king's letter from birmingham jail while he was in jail and the impact on his life since his release including his founding of freedom reads that builds libraries in prison. then, abby phillips and her book on jesse jackson and the fight for black political power. watch our special coverage monday beginning at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. ♪ >> c-span is as unbiased as you can get.

>> you are so fair. i don't know how anybody can say otherwise. >> you do the most important work for everyone in this country. >> i love c-span because i get two or all of the voices. >> you bring these diversion viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds. >> i love c-span. i love to hear both sides. >> i watch c-span every morning. what it is unbiased and you bring factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments. >> probably the only place we can hear honest opinions of americans across the country. >> you guys at c-span are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions. >> thank you, c-span, for being a light in the dark. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we are in open forum ready to take your calls.

let's start with bob in pennsylvania on our line for republicans. caller: i think credit cards are evil for most people. the rule should be if you don't have money, don't spend it. you swiped that card, put it on credit, i guarantee you will go into debt and it will spiral out of control, so why risk the trap? live within your means. use cash or debit and avoid the headaches. what do you think? host: do you have any credit cards? caller: yes but i have a usaa credit card and i pay it off every month. i just use it as basically a mastercard, a banking card. host: i am curious why you do not use cash yourself or use a

debit card. caller: because i have had it over 30 years and i get some rewards back. so, they are actually losing money on me. i do not pay interest. host: as we were talking with our last guest, there have been some efforts to change the fees and things like that which banking companies say could potentially risk rewards programs. i understand you do not like the idea of credit cards but use it for the rewards. what would you think of legislation that might reduce those swipe fees for put other limitations on interest rates for credit cards but might endanger those rewards you get? caller: uh, i would just stop using it then. i am not looking at it as an individual thing. i am looking at it as a whole. millions of people are stuck carrying month after month debt.

they have balances of 10,000, $12,000. it is like endless interest payments. like you are just working to pay the banks. i don't know. if you don't have the money, don't spend it, i guess. it is anticapitalist, the whole credit card system, if you ask me. host: let's go to faye in ithaca, new york, on the line for democrats. caller: good morning. i have a number of comments. first of all, i want to say to the jeffrey epstein survivors that you are not forgotten, that there are people out there that want the epstein files to come out entirely and we are rooting for you. and keep the faith. and the other thing is bob ryanair -- rob reiner, when he

passed away and trump said he was arranged, it was unbelievably insensitive. i was horrified by that. also we marjorie taylor greene said trump said the epstein survivors do not have the honor to meet with him. what? let's talk about who is deranged. the woman that came to the white house from venezuela who won the nobel peace prize and gave him her award, i mean, how deranged is that? what more does this country need to see there is a real problem mentally and spiritually with the leader of this country? i mean, first of all, mar-a-lago is not the white house. we choose a president so they

are in the white house. that is where the work gets done. taxpayers are paying for the airplanes and the security to constantly be going to mar-a-lago, constantly going to golf clubs. then there is all the money the trump family is making. it goes on and on and on. when you have callers saying i am tired of hearing people calling and bashing trump, i don't want to bash anybody, i want the truth! pbs news hour weekend is now off the air. they do not have the funding. this administration took that away. the news media is exceptional. ok? pbs, bbc, c-span, and there's others, ok? this administration wants to silence the truth -- host: i want to follow up on

something you missed earlier in your comment about the venezuelan leader who, as reported in abc news, said she was grateful to trump after giving him her nobel medal. maría corina machado said friday she was absolutely grateful to president donald trump after meeting with him thursday and presenting him with her nobel peace prize medal. the president called it wonderful gesture of mutual respect. in her first news conference since playing her country, the opposition leader was asked about the meeting and here is what she said. [video clip] >> did you urge him to seek the arrest of cabello? did you urge him not to meet with delcy rodríguez, as he indicated he would? did you urge him to not allow delcy rodríguez to reopen the been as waylon embassy in washington?

>> i think i don't need to urge the president on specific things. i think it is very clear what has to be done right now. we exchanged views about the implications of several actions. i just want to tell you that i was very impressed of the degree of information he has, how closely he follows the situation in venezuela. he is concerned about the well-being of our people, so we did talk about the political prisoners and their families, and the importance to stop repression from the root in venezuela right now because we cannot talk of a transition even in the first steps if there is still repression in our nation. host: back to your calls in open forum. mike is in valley center,

california, on our line for independents. caller: good morning. i wanted to mention trump is prosecuting the innocent and pardoning the guilty. he is operating like a crime boss. another point is trump wants to build battleships. battleships are an outdated platform. it is an easy target and would cost trillions of dollars. trump would be better off to build more cruisers and destroyers if he wants to build warships, even though i think it would probably be better to spend the money on cruise missiles and drone warfare. i think trump does not have any concept of naval warfare. and also, he is prosecuting mark kelly for reciting military law.

he has a real problem. without to compare service records between him and hegseth and trump the draft dodger. the final point is on january 6, trump ought to come forward and tell the truth of what is going on to the american people. he is trying to rewrite history. he ought to quit. those are my comments. host: next up is john in california on our line for republicans. good morning, john. caller: good morning. i have a question. last sunday, i was watching c-span. 20 years ago, i was teaching at a community college american government so i have some background in this. at the beginning of that show, he was talking about trump's

representatives meeting with the vice president of venezuela who was married to the president of their assembly and basically cut a deal to come in and take out the president as he did. trump bragged about our military. but if it was an inside job, i guess the reason i'm calling is i had not heard that point i view on any other platform and i watch an awful lot of various types of news sources. i am curious because you follow these things, has that story been verified in any way in some other media? host: i have not seen that personally, but i also have not individually look into that in great detail.

i will see what i can find while we hear from other callers and follow-up. caller: awesome. that is fantastic. thank you. host: next is jack in davenport, iowa, on our line for democrats. good morning, jack. caller: good morning. i give c-span a 96% rating on fair and balanced. you are quite good. your credit card program was excellent. i have a question. has c-span ever covered article four, section three of the constitution, which is the term -- uses the term "invasion"? whose responsibility is it to work against invasion? it seems to me either it is a state responsibility or a federal responsibility or maybe both. have you ever had an expert that talked about the term "invasion"

used in the constitution? host: i am not sure but you are welcome to go to c-span.org and check our archives. we have detailed transcripts of many of our programs. you can search and see if you can find something. next up is andy on our line for independents. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i have a little train of thought here. i am really glad that the capitol police did not have the same training as the i.c.e. agents. can you imagine the massacre we could have had that day? it is just beyond my comprehension. i am for taking directions from the police. that young woman, she should have taken some direction from

the capitol police. she would not have been shot. that gal that got shot the other day was clearly trying to drive away from the situation. it is just -- i mean, if you had i.c.e. protecting the capitol on january 6, it could have gone in any direction. who knows what side they would have taken? trump's side would have killing all the politicians. there just would have been a massacre on the steps of the capitol. it is just unbelievable how people see things, the way they see it. host: all right, mary is in spokane, washington, on our line for republicans. caller: good morning. i am not in spokane, i am in california. host: apology. caller: that is ok.

i was born and raised in minnesota. i went to college there and have lots of family there. anyway, there were two instances of police shootings i think your listeners should look up. one is a young woman named justine damond. she called police in minneapolis. there was something going on in her alley. host: this was in 2019, correct? caller: shot her dead. the guy was a somalian officer. he did not go to jail. no riots for that. the next one i want to talk about -- host: just to give of their folks the information you are working from, i'm going to read a little bit from cbs news about the specific case you are talking about from 2017. this is a 2019 article from when

the cop -- the headline is cop shot woman who called 911 without saying a word. it says a minneapolis officer acted recklessly when he vaguely called a woman who had called 911 to report a possible rape near her home. prosecutors told jurors when the trial began of the officer who shot justine as she approached his suv. that is the case you were referencing their. what is the other case you were talking about? caller: officer potts. first name escapes me right now. she went to jail for shooting someone, woman, 25-year police officer. exemplary record. pulled out her gun as a taser for a guy that had a warrant out. stopping for a traffic violation

and he drove away. of course, he is black, 20, and he is dead. she went to jail. two years. name was officer potts. anyway, i want the viewers to think about these officers, what they are going through, including the i.c.e officer. justine was unarmed, she called the police and went out to meet them in the alley. the woman shot by i.c.e., she had a car, she drove into him. she had lots of time to think about it. if there was a woman with a baby stroller in front of her car or an old lady crossing in front of her car, do you think she would have driven into them? i don't. i really feel like people should take a step back, let things play out, let's find out exactly what happened that day.

let people in the position of responsibility make the decision as far as what should happen to this i.c.e. officer. host: all right, next is barbara in connecticut on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: hi. kimberly, you do a good job you are a beautiful looking woman. hats off to elizabeth warren for the little guy. they certainly helped me when the bank mixed up an account th at belonged to me. they were contacted, the consumer protection bureau which elizabeth warren's baby with elon musk and trump.

everything was straightened out. they made a big mistake. i just want to to give that account. host: ok. robert is in columbus, ohio, on our line for independents. good morning, robert. caller: good morning. host: we are in open forum. what is your comment? caller: yes, thanks for taking my call. i was wanting to talk about the issue in minnesota. i believe the governor and the mayors of st. paul and minneapolis should take a leadership role and convince the protesters this has not really solved anything, so let's just go home, be with your families, and let this investigation play out, and see if things calm down. host: all right. james is in englewood, ohio, on

our line for republicans. good morning, james. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have called on several occasions and i follow you guys all the time. i find it interesting the perspectives of so many different people. i try to keep an open mind on many things. but there are multiple factors here that i don't think have soaked into most people's mindset. the reason i.c.e. is as busy as they are and are following the orders of the law of the land has to do with an invasion and an open border. the situation that occurred in

minnesota with the death of the woman is directly related to drums being beat on that tell people to go out there and resist. i truly believe the governor of minnesota and the mayor of minneapolis should be forced to read the criminals that have been taken off the street and the legalities for which makes them criminals. we have to reach a point where we make sense. and it is no different from a lot of different issues. if you complicate it, it becomes complicated. there is no need for it. i thank you for your time.

i pray for this nation. and i support donald trump 1000%. thank you. host: bernice is in iowa on our line for independents. good morning, bernice. caller: good morning. can you hear me well? host: yes. caller: i want to note i saw one slice of videotape on television, i never saw it again, and it has to do with the shooting of that beautiful young mother that was shot in minneapolis. host: renée good. caller: thank you. ms. good was shot at an angle from the front of her windshield. if that officer had been in front of her car, it would have shot straight in to her on the right side of the windshield. not only that but the tape that

i saw, the officer was something like five foot away from her car shooting at an angle. i only saw it once on television. i saw all of the other tapes they showed and it is just a joke the government is saying that woman did something wrong. furthermore, in one of the tapes, it shows her slinging her steering wheel very far to the right to avoid that officer. and the other tape i saw, he was standing about five foot from the actual car matched that. host: there are quite a few videos of that incident and varying analyses of them. i want to read from one of the new york times analyses of the videos that incident. it says in a video analysis, the times focuses on key contested moments of the agent's cell phone video alongside other footage.

more videos are likely to emerge. but the visual evidence shows no indication the agent who fired the shots, jonathan ross, had been run over. the footage provides visibility into the positioning of the agent and the suv in the key moments of escalation and establishes how mr. ossoff put himself in a dangerous position near her vehicle in the first place. there is a lot more to this article and many more analyses of the videos. that is all the time we have for open forum. after the break, we are going to be joined by southern methodist university center for presidential history director jeffrey engel and we are going to discuss the 35th anniversary of operation desert storm. we will be right back. ♪ >> watch america's book club, c-span's bold original series, sunday was our guest, pulitzer

prize winner and former poet laureate rita dove who has authored several collections of poetry. >> don't think you can forget her. don't even try. she is not going to budge. no choice but to grant her space. crown her with sky for she is one of the many. and she is each of us. >> she joins our host, renowned author and civic leader, david rubenstein. [video clip] did your teacher say poetry is not a big career future, you should write prose? did people tell you that or not? >> i did not even know it was something you could do and live your life. i thought the less i was writing poetry from the age of 10. it was a secret, it was my thing that i enjoyed. i did not realize that a little

black girl could become a poet. >> watch america's book club with rita dove only on c-span. ♪ >> on this episode of booknotes+ with our host brian lamb. >> "the trillion dollar war machine" is the name of the book. they both worked for the quincy institute for responsible statecraft, a think tank in washington, a nonprofit whose stated purpose is to oppose the military-industrial complex described by president eisenhower in his farewell address. we will talk with the co-author on democratizing foreign policy. >> a new conversation with ben freeman on booknotes+ with host

brian lamb. it is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the c-span now app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. now, we are joined by jeffrey engel, the director of the center for presidential history at southern methodist university. he is joining us to discuss the 35th anniversary of operation desert storm. welcome to "washington journal." guest: hi, it is a pleasure to talk to you. host: i want to promote our phone lines because we will have a special phone line for gulf war veterans in addition to our normal numbers. democrats can call in at 202-748-8000. democrats, 202-748-8001. republicans, 202-748-8002. if you are a gulf war veteran and would like to share your experiences, 202-748-8003.

i wonder if you can set the stage for the environment of what global politics were like when this gulf war started 35 years ago. guest: yeah. global politics are key to understanding the entire thing. this is the end of the cold war, 19 89, 1990. the union is losing its grip over its own empire and its ability to help its own allies. this is key because saddam hussein in 1990 decided he wanted kuwait's oil. he wanted kuwait's oil and software presumed the rest of the world was a little bit occupied with other issues. occupied with the reunification of germany, figuring out what to do with the collapsing of the soviet union. we were just a year out from tiananmen square in china.

the world is really in flux. saddam hussein saw that as an opportunity to jump in and get the oil from kuwait that he wanted, which is why the united states and george bush responded the way they did. their first reaction to hearing the news saddam hussein was going to take this oil, was interested in this oil, was to say, do we care? saddam hussein wants to sell the oil. why does this matter to us? dick cheney was a secretary of made that argument most supposedly in the national security council. george bush and others after thinking about it for a few days came to the conclusion this is once -- this was the first test of what the post-cold war system would be like. if they allowed an aggressive rampage as the first moment of the end of the cold war, that

would tell people to post-cold war system would be chaotic, that the united nations regulations would not matter, that sovereignty would not matter. the united states decides to step up in a massive coalition to reject saddam from kuwait, not necessarily for the sake of kuwaitis but for the new international system they were hoping would develop at the end of the cold war. host: operation desert storm was the second phase of the gulf war and begin 35 years ago today. it was a short operation, about five weeks. why did it play out so quickly? how is it cute historically as an overall operation -- viewed historically as an overall operation? guest: it is viewed as a textbook operation. it was essentially a large air campaign for about the first month or so of the war. to be honest, it was an

incredible display of american technological advantage on the military sphere. there was no one in the world that could keep up with us technologically, especially someone like saddam hussein whose equipment had been older soviet equipment and was not up to the same generation, if you will, as american technology. the united states conducted a month-long bombardment to soften up and weaken the iraqi regime and in the ground invasion lasted 100 hours before kuwait was liberated. i have to stress that point because the united states goes into iraq again a little more than a decade later and occupies. that was a decision george h.w. bush did not want to make in 1991, not to occupy iraq. no one in his administration wanted to occupy iraq because, as they put it at the time, if you occupy it, you have to run it. we saw how difficult that could be.

the united states mandate was to liberate kuwait. that took about 100 hours. the united states and allies decided at that point to stop the war, even though they could have gone further and done what they wanted. but they knew the consequences of doing so the next day was going to be hardly worth the effort. host: talk more about that coalition. who else was part of this effort? guest: this is perhaps the most impressive coalition since world war ii. it has all the players, all the allies. the british, french, italians, japanese constitutional restrictions and what you can do militarily. the german sent financial support. this was key pacific allies coming together under american leadership. it turns out it is the largest deployment of american forces since vietnam.

over 500,000 troops were moved into the area by the end of it. the soviets who had been a real advocate for saddam hussein, the subject client state for many years, the soviets decided not to intervene because they too wanted to be on the right side, the democratic side, at the end of the cold war. the coalition is essentially everyone you can imagine is an american ally, plus other countries, russia, china, deciding not to oppose. that was key to making the whole thing work diplomatically. host: what was the outcome and lasting impact in terms of u.s. casualties and the longer tale of political consequences? guest: we could have a long conversation about political consequences. essentially, it is a remarkably

efficient war from the united states' perspective. every war is a tragedy. the united states loses only 100 people and the iraqi army is completely routed. the question historians still debate today is whether or not bush made the correct decision not to take saddam hussein out, not to remove him. i have to stress the logic here was quite clear. everyone in the administration was on the same page with this that the chances for saddam hussein to survive were infinitesimally small. let's face it, you just got routed in a war. dictatorships that get routed in a war did not end well for the leader immediately after. if we had to put a number on it, we would say he has leslie 1% chance of surviving. obviously, he survived. sometimes, the 1% works. saddam hussein becomes a thorn

in the american side for the next decade-plus until the subsequent president bush decides to take action against him. there is a whole lot of historical speculation we could get into whether or not bush sr. was right not to take saddam out, whether or not he was right not to take baghdad. everyone in the administration believed to the end this was the right choice to have been made. even dick cheney who was a vigorous advocate of the iraqi war in 2003 and removing saddam hussein, in 1991, he was clearly in favor of not going in. he did not want the job of occupying iraq. if you ask about long-term consequences, i think it is hard to talk about this war without talking about the next war. host: we talked a lot about what the administration was doing in this moment but not so much about congress. what did congressional action look like around this? guest: that is a funny --i should not say funny -- a

significant tale in our own age when we are having questions over congressional authority when it comes to warmaking. essentially, george bush, sr., was firmly of the belief legally and politically that he had the constitutional authority to wage this war without congressional consent. just because he thought he had the authority did not mean it was a good idea. was convinced by his aides to go to congress to get a congressional run solution -- resolution authorizing him to use force. this was just before the desert storm period at the battle we are talking about today, january 1991. george bush's own military authority had already moved several thousand troops into the desert to protect saudi arabia and prepare for the invasion months before. congress faced the situation of 500,000 troops in the persian gulf deciding they were going to

support the president. it was a relatively close vote in the senate, largely i think because like so many other boats in washington, when people realize what the answer would be, they were able to vote for what they thought was politically best. the really interesting thing we know from george bush's diary and records from the bush library is that president bush, although he was convinced it was the right thing to go to congress to get correctional approval, he was convinced he had the authority to go to war even if congress said no. and he was determined he was going to go to war even if congress said no. his logic is quite interesting to us today. he said, i think we are going to win this war handily and quickly. presidents who win wars are very popular. he said let them try to preach me when i -- impeach me when i

have a 95% approval rating. no one is going to sanded the wrong thing when are standing victorious. it is one of the riskier moments other president deciding ahead of time to defy congressional authority. although he never had to do it because he won the vote, he was prepared to go ahead without congressional authorization. host: how has -- how did the authorization for operation desert storm shape later conventional debates on military action for iraq, afghanistan, and we just had the war powers vote this week? guest: that is a really interesting question. as we have learned looking back, the war powers act at the end of the vietnam war is not as effective as the original authors would have wanted. we see in 1991 president bush

seeking congressional authority before launching military strikes. he has already moved almost half a million troops into the desert. we are prepared to go to war. but he seeks that congressional authority and sets unusual precedent that future commanders in chief before going to that kind of military conflict, i don't want to say war because it is not a technically legal war, before using legal force would seek -- military force would seek congressional approval. we are not talking about hitting a target you identified half an hour ago. we are talking about something it took months to get ready, which is why we saw george w. bush go to congress to get authorization when he went to war in 2003. it is why we saw barack obama during his efforts to rein in the syrian conflict go to congress and wing and nudge and

say i am asking for congressional authority and i hope you do not give it to me because i do not think it is a good idea to go to war. we see the precedent for congress being called in to give its approval to something the president has already decided to do. again, that is one of the key issues we will see potentially over the next few months and years as congress and the executive have this age-old battle over who is in charge of the military. host: we will be taking questions for jeffrey engel who is the director of the center for presidential history at southern methodist university about the gulf war. if you are a gulf war veteran, 202-748-8003. let's start with linda in ohio on our line for democrats. caller: good morning.

yes, i find that our presidents are -- they can decide we need to go to this country, we need to go to this other country because what is a really good reason? in venezuela, i believe it was just oil. in operation desert storm, i believe it was just oil. they are proud because they did not have a lot of casualties. understand the people that would to fight, the veterans that came back, the soldiers like my son that came back physically and mentally affected. it is not just about going to war, it is about thinking about how our soldiers will come back. after all of this happens and our soldiers come back from

these countries, i just do not understand. we have to be more careful about these decisions we are making about sending soldiers to a foreign -- to foreign countries that after they leave, i mean, what happens? do they become better? are the people better off for that? no. our presidents realize what happens when you send our young men to war. thank you. guest: the questioner raises a really great point which is there were a lot of medical, psychological issues that developed for gulf war veterans after the fact which became kind of a political football in the 1990's because veterans started reporting all kinds of terrible and bizarre and strange cancers, etc.

it was essentially wrapped up in a title of "gulf war syndrome" because doctors at the time did not know what was going on except they knew there was a statistically significant chance if you had been in the gulf war you would have health problems afterwards. it took until the 1990's this became something the rest of congress was willing to step up and provide additional support to the veterans and recognize this was a concern. it is not a similar -- that do similar -- dissimilar in some ways from how people understood long covid. when people first started reporting long covid, the medical community's first response was to say we do not know what that is and that is not a thing. after enough people recognized it and enough time for studies to be done, people recognized it was something detrimental to soldiers. largely, i believe the problem for gulf war soldiers was exposure to burn pits and other chemicals used during the war

for the expediency of the war that had long-term health consequences. host: we have a question we received from mike in new jersey via text who says, can you discuss how desert storm spending, along with the following regional conflict, added to the national debt we have today? guest: it added quite a lot to be honest, less so the gulf war. the gulf war 1991, 1990, 1991, made the united states profit. that was not the goal. but the amount of aid allies paid to support the mission wound up being more than the mission actually cost. there is a little bit of accounting that goes in there. there is no suggestion the united states went to war to make money, but it shows how prestigious and important the

united states was to the international system that our key allies, especially those not sending military force, were more than willing to open up their bank accounts to help the united states. we wound up not losing money, actually making money on the gulf war. obviously, that is not the case for the rest of the 1990's when the united states under first dose and then bill clinton decide to set up a no-fly zone over iraq, which is a very extensive proposition to keep going for years upon years. and certainly nothing like the expense of afghanistan and especially iraq after 2003. i don't know that we still know the full cost of the iraq war and will not four years as the veteran costs rise as a consequent of their service in iraq. that is certainly in the multiple trillions of dollars at this point. that was not the case for this particular conflict, the 1990, 1991 gulf war.

actually wound up not costing the united states technically much of anything. host: william is in englewood, new jersey, on our line for democrats. caller: hello. it seems to be with all republicans connected with will, what happens and why the oil is not more talked about. the oil with the bushes up to today is disgraceful. we go to war with the guise of drugs and it is really about oil. the bushes were an oil family. why was so much about oil and the price of oil? i would like to hear your answer. guest: that is a great and important question. not just because i'm an annoying academic explain, i'm going to answer it in two different ways because there are two different levels.

the first is i would argue this conflict has nothing to do whatsoever with oil. let me rephrase that. the american response, which is to say saddam hussein obviously wanted kuwait's oil, you wanted to sell more oil, he was in debt because of his war and wanted to flood the market to drive the price down. the conflict on its face is about oil. the american response is on the first level not about oil. it is ultimately about what the post-cold war system will look like. all the records from the bush administration at this point, i cannot tell you what barack obama or joe biden or donald trump are thinking, i can tell you what george h bush -- george h.w. bush and his advisors were thinking on a particular day. they were very clear if it was just about oil, they were not going to care much because what they cared about was oil coming out of the middle east.

as a consequence, saddam hussein was going to sell oil, so what is the big deal? they realize the big deal was setting up the post-world war system should not have this as a precedent. on a second point, of course, it is about oil. it is about oil because it is very clear if this had taken place in a non-mineral resource area, if this had taken place in the middle of africa, the middle of south america, i doubt the united states would have mustered the interest and energy to send 500,000 troops to the gulf. i want to be clear about this. i do not believe the bush administration went to the middle east to get oil but they cared a lot about the middle east because that is where the oil was. at this moment in history, we are not getting much of our oil from the gulf. our european allies and japanese allies are getting almost all of theirs from the gulf. if this had been a place where oil is not involved, we would

not have gone to war. having said that, i think we went to war not because of the oil but because we cared about the region, because of oil, but really wanting to make sure there was not aggression. those are two different stated intentions but both true. host: let's listen to the justification the president game at the time, january 16, 1991, president george h.w. bush announcing the start of operation desert storm. [video clip] >> just two hours ago, allied forces began an attack on military forces in iraq and kuwait read these attacks continue as i speak. ground forces are not engaged. this conflict started august 2 when the dictator of iraq invaded a small and helpless neighbor. kuwait, a member of the arab league and a member of the united nations, was crushed, its people brutalized.

five month ago, saddam hussein started this cruel war against kuwait. tonight, the battle has been won . taken in a court of the united nations resolutions and with the consent of the united states congress, it follows months of constant and virtually endless diplomatic activity on the part of the united nations, the united states, and many other countries. arab leaders sought what became known as an arab solution only to conclude saddam hussein was unwilling to leave kuwait. others traveled to baghdad in a variety of efforts to restore peace and justice. our secretary of state, james baker, held an historic meeting in geneva only to be totally rebuffed. this past weekend in a last-ditch effort, the secretary-general of the united

nations went to the middle east with peace in his heart, his second such mission. and he came back from baghdad with no progress at all in getting saddam hussein to withdraw from kuwait. now, the 28 countries with forces in the gulf area, have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution, have no choice but to drive saddam from kuwait by force. we will not fail. host: that era questions for jeffrey engel, director of the center for presidential history at southern methodist history, about the gulf war. let's talk to rob in illinois on our line for democrats. caller: good morning, kimberly. i was calling because i believe there was no justification for desert storm or the invasion of iraq, none at all. unfortunately, we cannot talk to

colin powell because he is gone. donald rumsfeld is gone. dick cheney is gone. however, president george bush is still here and so is condoleezza rice. i believe they should be pursued and questioned about -- host: if i can cause you for a moment, we are talking about two different conflicts here. jeffrey, do you want to lay out the difference between the two? guest: yeah, this is a common problem but understandable because we are talking about the same people in many ways, the same enemy, the same area. in 1990, 1991, the war we are talking about this morning, that was about saddam hussein having captured kuwait. it was about the united nations-led mission to liberate kuwait, but it was not about taking over iraq, nor was it about taking saddam hussein out of power. it was not about regime change. it was just about kuwait. we can critique president bush if you wish. i would not but people can, for

not going further, for not taking iraq. host: george h.w. bush. guest: yes. i believe what the caller is referring to is actually the second iraq war, if you will, the 2003 invasion and occupation of iraq which was done by the second george bush, george w. bush, who was advised by condoleezza rice and donald rumsfeld. neither of those players were particularly important in the conversation. rumsfeld was in the government. condoleezza rice was an advisor in the first administration, so she did not have a lot of discussion -- a lot to do with the decision to go to war in 1991. host: with that clarification, rob, did you have a follow-up question? caller: condoleezza rice was on the sunday morning talk shows

talking about mushroom clouds about iraq and if we don't go into iraq, talking about there would be a mushroom cloud. host: that is a different conflicts but i understand your point. let's hear from greg in connecticut on our line for independents. good morning, greg. caller: good morning, kim. good morning, jeff. you sound like you are on board with all of this and santa -- insanity, to be honest. guest: [laughter] caller: no, seriously. one quick question before i asked my general question. who was in afghanistan in 1979? guest: the soviet union. and the cia. caller: so was osama bin laden. who gave osama bin laden his first rocket launcher? the united states government did. ok? guest: that is a little -- that

is coming up a few steps. host: what is your question about the first goal for? -- gulf war? caller: saddam hussein asked if he could invade kuwait. guest: that is incorrect, i am afraid. i appreciate the viewer's enthusiasm. i love a good historical discussion in the morning. this is one of the stories that comes out of the golf war -- gulf war that is misremembered and not the way things played out. i believe what the viewer is referring to is in the days before saddam hussein invaded kuwait, this would have been the midsummer of 90, he had already been saying for months he was interested in getting more oil

and wanted to take it from kuwait. he called the american ambassador into his office and said, what are we going to do about this kuwait problem? she said, and i want to be very clear about the language here, she said, the united states takes no position on border disputes. we do not want any dispute, she said, to be resolved militarily. but we do not take a position formally on border disputes. why did she say that? that is standard operating procedure for the state department because otherwise it could be involved in 8000 border disputes around the world. she said we do not want this done militarily. she goes home on vacation. the war begins. she is stuck in the united states. saddam hussein releases a somewhat edited transcript of

the conversation after he was taking kuwait in which he essentially makes it seem as if april glasby was given the choice and told he would invade kuwait and she said we take no position on border disputes. essentially, everything she said was textbook correct. it is a little-known fact george h.w. bush was scheduled to have a telephone call with saddam hussein the evening after he invaded kuwait. that call never happens because he invaded kuwait but we have the notes and memorandum from the phone call and president bush's memorandum says remind saddam hussein we do not take any position on border ships disputes -- border disputes so long as they are resolved

peacefully. this becomes a blackeye for the state department and april glaspie. i think it is a tragedy her impressive career gets derailed and destroyed by the fact she becomes the poster child for having done something she did not do. she becomes the poster child for giving the green light when she never actually said that. host: is quite a testimony to how -- it is quite a testimony to have narratives and memory effect how we view history. thank you, jeffrey engel, talking to us about the 35th methodist university. thank you so much. guest: good to talk to you. host: thank you to everyone who called in on "washington journal." we will be back with another addition tomorrow at seven :00 a.m. eastern. next we have "ceasefire". have a great day. ♪